When Floyd and I were stationed in England, we had a choice of attending the Church of England, which didn’t preach the gospel, the base chapel, which preached more of a social gospel, and a Southern Baptist Church. So we attended the Southern Baptist Church right outside the main gate.
The people there were young in the Lord (as was I). Well, Floyd was my mentor, and God used him tremendously to guide me into spiritual maturity. We both had arrived on base as single GIs. We met, dated, and got married. The married couples in our church now recognized us as a couple, but the single GIs still considered us part of them, even though we were married.
We always had an open door policy. We had our single friends over to our house time and time again – for Thanksgiving dinner, for Christmas, for weekends. Anytime they wanted to get out of the barracks for awhile, they showed up at our house, and they knew that they were always welcome. One of those friends got saved. His name is Brandy Gibson. We loved Brandy. He was one of our best friends. He and his girlfriend, Dawn, showed up at our house one day just to check on me because he knew that Floyd was TDY (temporary duty at another base). Floyd was a jet engine mechanic and he went TDY a lot when we were stationed in England.
Well, there were some things going on in the church that we disagreed with. They were having a deacon election. One of the men who’d been nominated was divorced, another one smoked, the third guy was a spiritual babe. We felt strongly that none of them were qualified to hold the position of deacon, and Floyd let them know in no uncertain terms. People in the church said, “God forgives them. Why can’t you?”
Of course, forgiveness had nothing to do with it. Floyd replied, “I don’t hold anything against any of them. But according to God’s Word, they don’t qualify. God set the standards; not me.” But they couldn’t hear the truth through their own biased and spiritually-immature belief system. On election day, God spared Floyd from seeing the disastrous results by sending him TDY (as they all got voted into office).
Now, we had two members of our church, who were also military, and it came to Floyd’s attention that they were homosexual. We liked them and had no problems with them attending our church, but because of their lifestyle, they weren’t allowed to be members. Quietly, Floyd approached the church leadership. You can imagine how that went over. We were told “Don’t rock the boat. If you don’t say anything, no one will ever know.” Floyd was an NCO (non-commissioned officer) in the United States Air Force. He had to say something.
On Monday, he reported it to OSI (Office of Special Investigations). They conducted a very quiet investigation. When it was over, they found the allegations to be true and these two men were quietly discharged from the military and sent home. The church leadership was furious with Floyd as they were now forced to address the issue and remove these guys from our membership roll. In addition, everybody liked them, so they felt Floyd had overstepped his bounds.
Needless to say, we were not popular or well-liked at that church, and when we were getting ready to PCS (permanent change of station) back to the States, our spiritually immature deacon stood up at a men’s breakfast and announced, “Well, finally, the last of the trouble makers is leaving.” We were the only ones leaving, so I suspect he was talking about us.
When you stand on the Word of God and His godly principles, you are not popular in the world; and sometimes not even in the church.